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address 



BEFOKE THE 



SOCIETY. OF THE ALUMNI 






DEL A AY ARE COLLEGE, 




JULY, 18 4 7 


EDWARD G. BRADFORD, Es<i. 











WILMINGTON, DEL. : 

PORTER & NAFF, PRINTERS, 97 MARKET STREET. 


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ERRATUM. 

On page 9, eleventh line from the bottom, for 
“ in the eve of Revelations,” read, on the eve of 
Revolutions . 





ADDRESS 


BEFORE THE 


SOCIETY OF THE ALUMNI 


OF 


DELAWARE COLLEGE, 


Jtn, isir. 


EDWARD G. BRADFORD, Esa- 

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WILMINGTON, DEL. : 

POUTER &. NAFF, PRINTERS, 97 MARKET STREET. 
— 


1847 . 





New-Castle, Del., August 10 , 1847 . 


Dear Sir: 

At the last annual meeting of the “ Society of the 
Alumni,” of Delaware College, the undersigned were instruct- 
ed to request of you for publication, a copy of the very excellent 
and appropriate address delivered by you before the Society on 
the afternoon of the twenty-first ult. 

We beg to assure you of the great pleasure we have in now 
performing the duty assigned us ; and we trust you will see no 
reason to withhold compliance with the wishes of the Society 
so unanimously expressed. 

With much respect, 
your ob’t serv’ts, 

SAMUEL PLATT, 
WILLIAM JANVIER, 
SAMUEL GUTHRIE, 
Committee. 

Edward G. Bradford, Esq. 


Wilmington, August 12 , 1847 . 

Gentlemen : 

I received yesterday, your note, asking a copy 
of my address before the “ Society of the Alumni of Delaware 
College,” for publication. 

I am pleased that it appears to have met your approbation, 
and will send you the copy you request, if it will be of any 
gratification to you or profit to others. 

With respect, 

your obedient servant, 

E. G. BRADFORD. 

To Messrs Samuel Platt, 

William Janvier, 

Samuel Guthrie, 

Committee. 










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X 


ADDRESS. 


Gentlemen of the Society of the Alumni of Dela- 
ware College: 

The duty which your partiality has 
imposed upon me to-day, I am sure would have been more 
ably performed by others of your number ,* yet as this is your 
first assemblage, and you, my former companions of College 
hours, have selected me as your Speaker, I yield with feelings 
of gratitude for the undeserved compliment my own sense of 
insufficiency to your kind wishes. 

It is a pleasure to revive the recollections of youth, and it is 
one, in most cases, akin to Virtue, for it brings us into commu- 
nion with whatever of purity and freshness there may have 
been in us, when in our best estate. It serves a great moral 
purpose. The wicked man of perverted intellect and seared 
sensibilities, cannot long commune with the spirit of child- 
hood, — cannot throw himself back upon his days of innocence 
and joy — of harmless sports — of ardent hopes — of generous 
confidence — of guileless simplicity — without rising chastened 
in spirit, and perhaps a better man. The rosy hours of youth, 
indeed, fly swiftly by, but, like spirits of love, they return with 
healing on their wings, to the traveller, soiled with earth’s 
crimes and cares and vanities, who, in the fulness of his heart, 
summons them to minister to his consolation and amendment. 

If there is to be found this pleasure and profit in the recur- 
rence to youthful days in the general circumstances of men, 
how much must they be enhanced to those who, when young, 
have been bound together by ties of happiness of no ordinary 
character. 


2 


6 


There are some who have no sunny childhood to survey ; 
who, while few in years, were never young ; whose opening 
manhood has been made desolate by want and wretchedness, 
youth’s beauty, freshness, simplicity, faith, and joy have not 
been theirs. Grim poverty and the task-master stood before 
these children as they had before their fathers, and promised 
only support of life to unremitting toil. Let us be thankful 
that such is seldom the case in this country, where abundance 
and domestic joy crown the efforts of honest industry ; let us 
be thankful, not only for the pleasures of youth, but for the 
softening influence which the memory of those pleasures 
should have upon our lives ; and let us avail ourselves of this 
occasion to renew those associations so well calculated to im- 
prove our dispositions and elevate our character. 

In selecting a subject, gentlemen, upon which to offer you 
some reflections, I think I can choose none better, at this time, 
than the Influence which should be exerted by Educated Men 
in opposition to the Radicalism and Extravagance of our age 
and countrymen. 

I am aware that the subject is a large one, and its thorough 
discussion would require time, more than I could venture to 
take, and would involve an ability, a power of analysis, and 
philosophic insight into the structure of our moral, social, 
civil, and political relations, of which I may not be possessed. 
Nevertheless, there are certain general views upon this as 
upon other topics, which are clearly presented to reflective 
minds, and which cannot fail, sanguine as we may be as to the 
ultimate welfare of our country, to excite feelings of the deep- 
est solicitude. There is a race of Croakers on the one side, 
and Utopians on the other: let us avoid both of these ex- 
tremes, and while we are not depressed by imaginary fears, let 
us strive to temper our hopes of future prosperity and great- 
ness with a becoming caution, and remember that “ the price 
of liberty is eternal vigilance.” 

Great as is the influence of education upon the masses, in 


7 


the developement of social, civil, and national excellences, 
it is still true that to the leading minds of a country has Provi- 
dence committed its destiny, — to the men of superior talent 
and mental discipline, who in numbers are comparatively few 
•—men who tower above their fellow men, catching the light of 
the morning while the world around is wrapped in darkness, 
and receiving the last rays of the setting sun while the sha- 
dows of evening are stretching far in the valleys below. It is 
for these to observe the spirit of the times — to seize the critical 
moments in a nation’s moral or intellectual history, and by the 
force of superior will and genius, give direction and shape to 
the earnest, restless, but comparatively undefined and aimless 
popular feeling and opinion. 

There is among all men a reverence of Power. It is implant- 
ed in their minds by laws of their nature. They may affect to 
despise the depository of it ; they may give sincere and un- 
qualified condemnation to the improper exercise of it ; it may 
inspire fear, as it always does, to a greater or less degree : 
still there is a fascination exerted by power, which cannot be 
completely shaken off even by the most philosophic. 

Upon this principle, and under this influence, men willingly 
follow, if they are convinced of the integrity, and, above all, of 
the ability of their leaders. Attracted by admiration, the masses 
are too often swept along by the operations of a powerful will, 
which takes by storm their judgment and sober discretion. 
Thus, in times of national convulsion and distress, when the 
public mind has been struggling after some ill-defined political 
good, and the public heart has been beating responsive to its 
own mighty passions, the statesman or the soldier of com- 
manding will and powerful intellect, is soon invested by the 
admiring multitude with attributes more than human : in his 
schemes of ambition and personal aggrandizement, are seen 
only the public good and national glory, and in the wildness of 
their enthusiasm they unwittingly forge the fetters with which 
their demi-god is to enchain them. 

Such is the necessary influence of Power in all its forms 
and however exerted. 


8 


Providence, in his inscrutable wisdom, has permitted the hu- 
man intellect to advance with rapid strides in one age, and 
then has sent it back to its barbaric infantile feebleness, to 
commence again the slow, painful development of national civi- 
lization and refinement. Man’s knowledge is not only limited, 
but his little is liable to loss. Building up his temples upon the 
shores of the great sea, some billow, higher and mightier than 
the rest, rolling in from the dark, deep far unknown, sweeps 
over the results of his labors and leaves not a trace behind to 
guide succeeding generations. Thus has the mighty Lore of 
Eastern nations perished from the earth. The learning of 
Greece and Rome, itself, wrought out of the treasures of the 
East, was swept for centuries from the world, and fierce, igno- 
rant, rough Europe left to develope and elaborate from the rub- 
bish of the past, a civilization of its own, as Romans, and Gre- 
cians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and East Indians had done 
before them. Yet in this fluctuation of human knowledge, 
—bright in one country — glimmering in another — rich in trea- 
sure in one age — and emerging from the poverty of barbarism 
in another — do some imagine they see the gradual progress of 
the human mind in a development to which it has never yet at- 
tained, and the coming of a time when knowledge is to be uni- 
versal. 

Without indulging in speculation on this point, let us con- 
sider some of the circumstances in which we find ourselves 
placed ; some of the peculiarities of the time, which, if not mo- 
dified or controlled, may be injurious or ruinous in their ten- 
dency. 

We live in an active busy age, — an age of intense mental 
excitement — of very general education — of too much read- 
ing for the corresponding amount of thought: as a conse- 
quence, in an age of theories and ill-digested schemes for so- 
cial, moral, and political reform. Nourished by success, our 
national vanity is excessive. We have accomplished much, 
and the inference of the American mind is, that there is to be 
no limit to improvement. We seem to think that the passions 


9 


and infirmities of men in our case will be removed, in order 
that our schemes may have a beautiful and thorough develop- 
ment. We have been victorious in the struggles of the Re- 
public; we, therefore, are never to be conquered. We have 
achieved political liberty of no ordinary character, and to no 
ordinary extent, and have enjoyed the blessings of a fair and 
equal administration of salutary laws ; therefore the frame of 
this government is to be lasting ; and the people by whose au- 
thority it was made, cannot be entrusted with too much power 
and license. Under the benign influence of the Christian reli- 
gion, and of combinations for moral and benevolent purposes, 
morality and sobriety are diffused to a great degree through- 
out the land ; therefore religion cannot degenerate into fanati- 
cism, and those combinations cannot be perverted from their 
legitimate purposes, and made destructive of the very objects 
they were intended to accomplish. 

These are some of the non sequiturs of the day, some of the 
gross errors fastening on the public mind, which must be com- 
bated and removed, the determination of which is the true 
crisis in the history of this nation. 

We know it is fashionable with alarmists to find in any event 
of notoriety some crisis upon which the destinies of the coun- 
try hang. In this cry some are sincere, some insincere — some 
with a timidity which fails to investigate causes and results, 
magnify every evil and tremble at every shadow. Some have 
a feverish strange desire to find themselves in the eve of Reve- 
lations, not knowing whither they may tend. Some have a 
bilious horror of popular license, and see destruction in the ex- 
ercise of rational liberty by the people. Some with impu- 
dence, availing themselves of the popular passion for excite- 
ment, raise the cry of crisis, to give currency and interest to 
their wishes, opinions and schemes. Nevertheless, it is true, 
that there are periods in that progress which the human mind 
makes in the development of civil and political freedom of 
social, moral and intellectual excellence fraught with danger — 
times when the apparent fulness of health to the thoughtless, 


10 


promises long life ; but, to the earnest thinker, if not indicative 
of speedy dissolution, at least, points out the necessity of 
prompt and decided remedies. 

The age of rapid progress is the most dangerous period in a 
nation’s history. Political Society, in its rise and declension, 
pursues to a certain extent, analogies in the life of the individu- 
al ; and in no respect more than in this, that power cannot be 
entrusted to either, without intelligence and self-restraint to 
direct and control the use of it. Every popular revolution 
illustrates this truth. How often in the struggles for freedom 
throughout the world, when much has been gained, has nearly 
all been lost by the wild unbridled use of that which has been 
so hardly won. Power is a thing of awful responsibility, and 
of vast consequences: man must serve a long probation before 
he can use it rightly: and this is true in reference to the use of 
all kinds of power. Yet it is the eager desire of our hearts to 
leap to the possession of it without any thought as to our ability 
to manage it. The most dangerous time is when continued 
success has induced vanity, self-confidence and arrogance, 
when, in the intoxication of new-found enjoyments, we forget 
the guards and checks, the conditions on which alone power 
can be entrusted to any one. There must be a disposition as 
well as an ability to lay restraint on our passions and weak- 
nesses. There can be no liberty without restraint. Liberty 
has within it the germ of its own life ; deprive it of restraint, 
and it becomes license, and license bears with it the seeds of 
destruction. 

The great question of this time with every well wisher of 
his country, who reflects on the necessary tendency of popular 
principles, and who believes that the best service he can ren- 
der to the people, is an earnest and friendly endeavor to correct 
popular error and abuses, and not with the lying tongue of the 
demagogue, to excite their evil passions and flatter their vanity ; 
the question which rises superior to the schemes of national or 
State policy arraying in bitter hostility so many partisans is, 
is there an increasing disposition in the American people to 


11 


control themselves in exercise of that great Liberty wherewith 
they have been made free, or is there a manifest and growing 
tendency to allow it to degenerate into extravagance and li- 
cense? I do not refer simply to civil or political liberty, which 
is only a part, and a comparatively small one, of that subject 
matter upon which the public mind and feeling is continually 
operating. There is a life of a people less apparent, but no 
less real, an inner life, which is silently moving on for good or 
evil. In that life there is a tone of thought and feeling, which 
constitutes public sentiment, which may be healthy or unsound, 
liberal and free, and at the same time conservative, or radical 
and extravagant. From this public sentiment spring your 
laws, your institutions, and the whole frame-work of your Go- 
vernment, of which it is the soul and vital principle, and as in 
the individual the corrupting principles of his heart may be 
silently gathering strength, while his outward observance of 
the laws of society and of the land is perfect ; so in communi- 
ties, you may be enjoying the blessings of rational liberty, your 
laws may be wholesome, and you may fondly hope for their 
perpetuity ; no direct attack has yet been made upon them, yet 
there may be collecting the elements of their destruction — com- 
mencing, indeed, from mean beginnings — fostered by the wick- 
ed and designing — embraced by the vain and thoughtless, and 
revealing themselves to the world in the thunder tones and wild 
work of that tempest, which, but a short time since, was “ no 
bigger than a man’s hand.” 

This moderation or license of public sentiment is the more 
important as being the motive power of all for good or evil 
in our prospects as a Nation. 

One of the extravagances in this public sentiment, which is 
most apparent, and the evil effects of which are daily felt, is a 
disposition to lower and continue lowering, the standard of ca- 
pacity, which should always be demanded of every man placed 
in a responsible station. Public and professional men do not 
require the same talent, learning and laborious study now 
as formerly, to fill the same space in the public eye, and, as a 


12 


consequence, they are less respected. New and short paths to 
public estimation have been found out — not cut through the 
rock by a powerful will and the perseverance of years, but 
leading through smooth and flowery fields, over which the tra- 
veller glides with comparative ease. In the different branches 
of business, mercantile, mechanical and others, we see the 
same spirit prevailing, into which untried boys enter — run their 
short course, and fail, without capital, knowledge or business 
ability, and without the perseverance “ to labor and to wait.” 
There is an evil which lies at the root of this matter ; it is this, 
there is in the imagination of some, a robust, all-prevailing 
common sense, which is to make up for the deficiencies of la- 
bor and education, and invest its possessor with those powers 
which can only be acquired by the “ lucubrationes mginti an - 
norum” It will make him in a short time a clergyman, a phy- 
sycian, a lawyer, and above all, (for we have a natural turn 
for politics,) a statesman and legislator. The idea is an exhila- 
rating one — it flatters our vanity — it comes home to every man. 
No one is so humble as not to believe he at least is possess- 
ed of common sense. It is fostered by the demagogue, -^em- 
braced by the shallow and unthinking — until this heresy has 
really some existence in the community. And yet it is a mon- 
strous heresy, — utterly fallacious in point of fact, and ruinous 
in its tendency ; for common sense does not give a man know- 
ledge, it does not put him in possession of facts ; it is a clear 
sound judgment, which looks upon things in their common 
natural relations. There must be that possession of the facts 
which appertain to every business or profession before this fa. 
culty can be developed in reference to that business or profes- 
sion. If a Physician goes to a Hatter and claims to know how 
to make a hat as well as he, because he is a man of clear, 
common sense, the Hatter will treat him with merited contempt; 
and yet there are demagogues who will persuade this very 
Hatter that his strong common sense would make him a good 
Physician, and especially a good Judge, and just in proportion 
as a profession requires long and painful study to master it, is 
there a disposition in some to drag it down to the reach of 


13 


every one, — not every one who can exercise it rightfully, and 
beneficially, but of every pretender and quack whose impu- 
dence far exceeds his ability. 

This depreciation of the standard of ability in public, profes- 
sional and business relations, so apparent to every man of ob- 
servation proceeds from some cause. Among the inestimable 
blessings of a free government, it is one of the attendant evils. 
You cannot have the purifying thunder storm without the oc- 
casional damage of the lightning stroke ; you cannot have the 
prevalence of popular principles, without the extravagances 
which often attend them. That education which brings only a 
little knowledge to a people, brings a “ dangerous thing.” 
This country, while it has been blessed with men of powerful 
intellect, and of pure elevated moral character, is sometimes 
cursed with a race of little great men, who have been thrust 
into station and notoriety by those who hope to set the prece- 
dent favorable to themselves, and by management attain to 
that which their capacity and integrity never can reach. 

But all cannot be equally educated, and all are not equally 
endowed by their Creator. It is wicked to talk of repressing 
intelligence in the masses, and equally unphilosophical to think 
of elevating them to the condition of the few. 

These observations are true, and their truth renders the po- 
sition of a people situated as our own, in this respect, critical, 
and involves the necessity of a more thorough education of the 
people, and a bold conservative stand to be taken by men of 
principle and education, against extravagance of public senti- 
ment, and particularly that kind which breaks down the bar- 
riers between experience and inexperience, knowledge and ig- 
norance, talent and medicority, pure elevated character and 
arrogant self-importance; which lowers the standard of capacity, 
and would substitute for all the qualities of a mind trained to 
the mastery of particular subjects, an ideal common sense, ut- 
terly fallacious as applied by the demagogue, and subversive 
of the best interests of the country. 

There is another disposition and tendency of the times very 


14 


manifest, which is to push the Democratic principle of our coun- 
try (and I use the word in no party sense) beyond its legiti- 
mate bearing, and beyond the expectation and wishes of the 
good and great men who formed the Government. 

There are certain conservative principles upon which all good 
and sensible men must unite ; whatever may be their views as 
politicians. Now while we admit that the People are the source 
of all political power, and that their agents are to be held to a 
strict accountability, we are not prepared to allow that the peo- 
ple are competent to perform the functions and duties which 
wisdom and past experience have shown should be entrusted to 
properly qualified agents. To admit this doctrine, would be to 
prefer the wildest and most extravagant democracy, to a con- 
servative representative Republic. This doctrine admitted, 
there must be soon an end of all government, for it is impossi- 
ble in the many and complex relations of civilized life, that the 
people should perform all these duties and offices required by 
the public good. If then there is an absolute necessity to ap- 
point qualified agents to perform those duties, from doing which 
the people are incapacitated, it is a necessary inference that the 
direct action of the people should be had only in those cases 
which conduce to the public good, and where agents can be dis- 
pensed with. It is this principle of agency which constitutes us 
a representative Republic in contra distinction to a Democracy. 
It was not intended that the principle should be limited in its 
operation — the more complex the system and civilized the people 
the greater extent should be given to it. It was intended to 
operate in the different branches and ramifications of the gov- 
ernment, whenever a sounder judgment, more capacity and 
integrity could reasonably be expected of the agent than of the 
people. 

Thus your Judiciary has been established, an Executive of 
one individual made to whom the power of appointment is giv- 
en, and the performance of other offices intrusted, and other 
agencies created, the action of which, in theory, is the manifesta- 
tion of the public will. 

There can be no doubt there is an increasing disposition to 


15 


bring every thing “ nearer to the people,” — to substitute this 
new democratic principle, such as I have described it, for the 
republican representative one — the chosen form of government 
of our forefathers. The attempts to exercise legislative pow- 
er by the people directly, — to take the power of appointment to 
office from the Executive, and give it to the people, involving a 
discretion and knowledge of individual character, which in the 
nature of the case never can be exercised advisedly by the peo- 
ple at large ; the desire to sully the Judicial ermine with the 
strife and stains of popular elections — to increase the number 
of those elections, and other schemes flattering to the vanity 
of the masses, abundantly sustain my position. 

And how has this been brought about? In some degree 
by the necessary tendency of popular principles — by that thirst 
for power in its possessor which is not easily satisfied — but 
above all by the incitements and stimulants to vanity, self suf- 
ficiency and jealousy administered by the demagogue, that can- 
ker worm gnawing at the heart of Republican Liberty — that 
foul serpent forever tempting to the enjoyment of that which will 
destroy. If in this country there is a man to be feared, guard- 
ed against, and abhorred, whose society should be shunned by 
men of respectability, it is the rotten-hearted, lying demagogue, 
who flatters to deceive, who paves his way to advancement — al- 
ternately by caresses and by calumny — fomenting discontent — 
arraying classes in bitter hostility to each other, and arousing 
evil passions on account of mere imaginary evils. 

In the first struggles for freedom it is natural that liberty 
should overleap itself. Popular masses impelled by passion 
are not dainty in their movements — the strength of the rhino- 
ceros is not coupled with the grace of the fawn. In Mr. Burke’s 
language “all greatness is unequal” — and it is not to be won- 
dered that, in the first hard fought battles by which modern civil 
and political liberty has been achieved, honest men embittered 
by the memory of wounds wrought upon them by the iron heel 
of tyranny, in rushing unwittingly from the despotism of the 
one, to that of the multitude, should cry aloud for the largest lib- 
erty and the widest license. 


16 


There is no such excuse here. Popular rights have been too 
long enjoyed and too well secured. Popular liberty too deeply 
rooted to be destroyed, except through license, — and such be- 
ing the fact apparent to every man, great must be the crime of 
him who fosters the feelings and passions, and panders to the 
vices which produce such a result. 

The disposition now prevalent to urge the principles of combi- 
nation and association for social, moral and benevolent purpo- 
ses — those great features of modern civilization, to extremes — 
to such extremes as must inevitably destroy the objects they 
were intended to accomplish, is a subject suggestive of many 
reflections, which time will not allow me now to notice. 

In this age of general education — but of many shallow men, — 
of disrespect of authority, and of time honored customs, — of ut- 
ter disregard for the prestige of station and of superior attain- 
ments — of scepticism in all things except in popular activity, 
physical advancement, and that onward, restless course too of- 
ten mistaken for improvement — of partial thinking, popular 
self-sufficiency and extravagance — there is a high duty to be 
performed by educated men — a conservative, moderating influ- 
ence to be exerted. Such influences are now of more impor- 
tance, than any inventions of science, creations of art or efforts 
in literature. As educated men are the pioneers in advance- 
ment, so they must now be the first to see the danger of too 
rapid progress, of too free exercise of power, and with all their 
might must oppose it. If there is ability any where to arrest 
the evil it abides with them. The Annual Commencements 
throughout the land, sending forth their thousands of young 
men with well drilled and reflective minds — speaking the same 
language — their faculties developed by the same general course 
of study, animated by the same hopes, avoiding the same 
dangers, and imbued with that conservative influence, the sure 
attendant upon high mental culture — present the surest and 
most deadly opposition to radicalism in all its forms. For rad- 
icalism springs from vanity and conceit, and the well educated 
man is humble. 


17 


There is with many a charm in the idea of American civili- 
zation which sets at nought the lessons of experience. There 
is a blind faith in the energy of the great Anglo Saxon race 
which fastens itself upon Destiny — that vast shadowy figure in 
the dim far off haze of Time whose imaginary beckoning causes 
us to throw off all restraint and becomes the apologist of every 
crime. John Adams, in the early dawn of freedom, cried in 
tones which should startle every cherisher of this brilliant phan- 
tasy, “ There is no special Providence for the Americans.” — 
His manly spirit placed his country’s welfare in an active virtue, 
tempered with a becoming prudence — he believed that the Peo- 
ple, as the individual, is the maker of its own fortunes. Wiser 
men of later times talk much of Destiny — of Progress, which 
in their estimation means an onward and irreversible tendency 
of the human race towards perfection, in some way or another 
connected with our fate — a something sublimated and grand, not 
only beyond experience, but putting at fault the powers of the 
imagination. And this Destiny is to be obtained — this Pro- 
gress is to be achieved notwithstanding our follies, self-glorifica- 
tion and crimes ; for is not this the chosen land of liberty ? 
and is not this a portion of the great Anglo Saxon race ? ! ! ! 

Gentlemen, that which in one age appears as the mere fig- 
ment of the imagination, in the next may become a thought, 
and in the succeeding the deep rooted feeling of a nation. It 
may perchance be a fallacy — let it be grasped while it can be 
mastered. Let it be exposed — and of this, concerning which 
we have been speaking, let it be enforced and understood, that 
all of destiny which can be predicated of any people is written 
in the past and present, — is found in the history of its virtues and 
its vices. 

This task devolves upon you. The refutation of error when- 
ever it takes the form of popular desire, is always an un- 
grateful work. It opens no prospect of dazzling reputation. 
The sunshine of popular favor may warm into life, and unfold 
the insect wings of the tiny politician who flutters his brief day 
around the political carcass — or the warm greetings of popular 


18 


applause may thrill the breast of the military aspirant for fame. 
A present reputation springs from that which appeals to the ima- 
gination of the people. The heroism of arms calling into play 
the highest physical courage, will set on fire a Nation’s heart ; 
while the heroism of patient suffering and forbearance, ground- 
ed on that moral, spiritual and more divine part of our nature, 
too often will descend to the tomb unknown and unwept. There 
is something in a bold progress which appeals to the popular 
imagination and to the passion for novelty, to a much greater 
degree than a quiet, moderating self-restraint. Our vanity and 
self-importance are more flattered by the creation of new 
systems, than by holding fast to the wisdom of our forefathers. 

The man, then, who opposes popular errors and desires, need 
not hope for the breath of that applause — he will rather meet 
suspicions from the ignorant, and denunciation from the dema- 
gogue. But in doing his duty in this respect, he will realize the 
fullness and beauty of that reward of disinterested virtue which 
the Divine Teacher implies in his sublime rebuke of selfishness, 
“ And if ye do good to them which do good to you what thank 
have ye ? for sinners also do even the same.” 




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